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Paul's right about the "increased exposure" part, though perhaps not in the way that his customers anticipate. John Biggs at TechCrunch has the story. In brief, when a customer complained about this controller not shipping by Christmas, and suggested he would complain to various tech sites, Paul Christoforo reacted with a bizarre rant, including the following:

You just got told bitch … welcome to the real internet check kotaku in 2 weeks when they are reviewing free PS3 Avengers we send them as well as G4 and all the other majors hell yeah , don’t forget to check Amazon, gamestop.com, play n trade , Myers , Frys and a ton of other local stores coming your way you think you speak for billions son your just a kid you speak for yourself no one cares what you think that’s why were growing and moving 20-50 thousand controllers a month. We do value our customers but sometimes we get children like you we just have to put you in the corner with your im stupid hat on.

OK Mike whatever you say lol , are you sure hour not in Boston I spoke to the person who ran the show in Boston last year. If you let some little kid influence you over a pre order then we don’t want to be a your show ,Ill be on the floor anyway so come find me , I’m born and raised in Boston I know the people who run the city inside and out watch the way you talk to people you never know who they know it’s a small industry and everyone knows everyone. Your acting like a douchbag not that it matters pax east pax west , e3 , CES , Gamer Con , SSXW ,Comic Con, Germany I’m all over the place.

Penny Arcade posted the exchange, and it has gone viral, appearing at Kotaku and all over the place. Paul Christoforo had already doubled down, so I guess you could say what came next was quadrupling down: when someone at IGN demanded that he stop citing them for support, he lashed out and suggested that he expected good reviews because he had sent free copies of the controller to them:

There are no lessons here for the Paul Christoforos of the world. Paul Christoforo and his ilk are uneducable. However, if you run a business, there is a lesson for you: when you outsource your marketing, you hand your reputation and ethics over to someone who may or may not be just like Paul Christoforo. Now, not every marketeer is like Paul. But can you tell the difference up front? Do you know how to supervise your outside marketeer? When you wake up one morning after the Christmas holiday and find your company or product in the center of an internet shitstorm caused by your deranged marketeer, do you have a strategy for repairing your reputation?

Edit 3: One source reports a conversation with Paul, in which he suggests this is no big deal and will all blow over, after which he offers an apology to the customer. It's likely to be too little too late — also, I'd point out that Paul's claim that he doesn't normally get into these communications with customers, and this was a one-time loss of temper, is contradicted by the earlier incident discussed above.

Edit 4: An apology to Penny Arcade. Sort of. "I didn't know how big your site was" is saying, in effect, "I now regret I picked on someone with power, instead of just the weak."

Ocean's web site clearly says, "Integrity and honesty are at the core of our business values." Somehow the part about, "but we won't let that get in our way if an opportunity seems ripe… or if either seems mildly inconvenient at any given moment" got left off.

I did especially like the part in the exchange where Paul encourages Dave to cancel his pre-orders so that Paul might sell them on eBay. Real class.

And it gets even better…in a bid to reverse all the negative publicity….wait for it…

….wait for it…

…wait for it….

he has suggested a lawsuit against Penny Arcade is in his mind. That was worth waiting for, no?

Here it is…When I brought up the posts on Reddit that discussed the emails, and the backlash that was visible there, [Paul Christoforo] more or less shrugged it off. He seemed annoyed by the amount of friend requests he’d received on Facebook, since someone managed to find him. He credited that to the fact that his information was posted at the bottom of the Penny Arcade piece, and said that he’d be talking to his lawyers about that later today.

There's a bit from the last e-mail between Mike and Paul that I want to highlight…

Your sites amateur at best my son could put together a better site than yours and you run PAX ?? Wow , Ill put my marketing team on a smear campaign of you and your site and your emails , I have about 125 dedicated people to run PR , Blogs , Articles , Videos you have no clue who I am . Thanks again.

First off, 125 people? I find that unlikely.

Second, he's insulting THEIR website? HAHAHAHAHA

No, I suspect that Mike used Google (I bet he Googles like a motherfucker), and knew exactly who Paul was. Paul's ignorance about PAX (pax west? Really?) and PA just make the explosion all the better.

Yeah, he's only sorry because he managed to accidentally go off on someone with a sounding board that PR firms would kill for.

I wonder – would N-Control have a cause of action to recover possible monetary losses due to this guy's raging incompetence?

And is Steroid use illegal? If so, who do I call to point the cops in Paul's direction?

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